{"id":10965,"date":"2024-05-14T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10965"},"modified":"2024-05-13T18:39:36","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T22:39:36","slug":"lets-make-english-more-efficient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10965","title":{"rendered":"Let’s Make English More Efficient!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here are a few amazing words from an article a friend in Arizona sent. Bill DeMain compiled this list of single words for Mental Floss that express things and feelings that need a whole sentence (or two) to get across in English. See all 38 here<\/a>, and prepare to wonder at the universality of human experience!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boketto<\/em> (Japanese) \u2013 when you gaze vacantly into the distance, thinking of nothing. <\/em>My cats do that a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tartle<\/em> (Scots) \u2013 that panicky feeling you have when you must introduce someone and their name has flown right out of your head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iktsuarpok<\/em> (Inuit) \u2013 that feeling when you\u2019re expecting someone to show up and you keep checking outside to see whether they\u2019ve arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greng-jai<\/em> (Thai) \u2013 that feeling when someone wants to do something for you, but you know it would be a problem for them, so you don\u2019t want them to do it. (Too many of us aren\u2019t that considerate.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gigil<\/em> (Filipino) \u2013 when you have an irresistible urge to pinch or squeeze something, often accompanied by squealing \u201csoooo CUTE!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lagom<\/em> (Swedish) \u2013 when something is neither too much or too little, but exactly right. DeMain asked a pertinent question: \u201cMaybe Goldilocks was Swedish?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zeg<\/em> (Georgian) \u2013 the day after tomorrow<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This word\u2014actually, it\u2019s more than one word\u2014that I could use daily: L\u2019esprit de l\u2019escalier<\/em> (French) \u2013 literally, stairwell wit\u2014a retort that occurs to you only after you and your conversation partner have gone your separate ways. In my case, it could be L\u2019esprit au milieu de la nuit<\/em>. 3 a.m., maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And here\u2019s one I thought of myself: Repouss\u00e9<\/em> (French) \u2013 appropriately, the word came to me in the middle of the night (some random synapse firing) and I made a correct guess about what it means. Repouss\u00e9<\/em> is a metalworking technique in which the artist hammers on the back side of a piece of metal so that the design appears on the front. These amazing battlefield shell casings from a display at the Arizona Copper Art Museum are an example\u2014probably where I encountered this word I didn\u2019t know I knew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here are a few amazing words from an article a friend in Arizona sent. Bill DeMain compiled this list of single words for Mental Floss that express things and feelings that need a whole sentence (or two) to get across … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"When you can't find a simple word to express what you mean--look to other languages. They may have done your work for you!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[174,1749,185,51],"tags":[2185,2184],"class_list":["post-10965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-draft-blog","category-international","category-language","category-words","tag-language","tag-wordplay"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2QR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10969,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10965\/revisions\/10969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}